hmmm interesting, just posted less than an hour ago at BBC Africa news feed:

Why does France have military bases in Africa?

(also filed there under Sahel Islamist insurgency)

With a wave of coups in former French colonies in Africa, France is finding it can no longer take its military role on the continent for granted.

There have been growing protests against France's presence in Africa, where it has previously flexed its military might. French troops have recently been expelled from Niger and Mali and others are considering scrapping independence-era deals that led to at least 30 French direct military interventions between 1964 and 1995.

Why are French troops in Africa?

Since independence, France wanted to "perpetuate and safeguard the stability and durability of certain regimes", says Dr Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute.

The former colonial power regarded West Africa and the Sahel as a "space of natural deployment and influence", he says.

Prof Bruno Charbonneau, from Canada's Royal Military College of Saint-Jean and an expert on peace and conflict interventions in West Africa, agrees

"The French military presence in Africa has also always allowed France to be at the heart of conflict resolution and management mechanisms in French-speaking Africa, particularly at the UN Security Council," he says.

Giving military support to friendly African regimes in this manner has meant France can project and protect its own interests, and mount rapid armed interventions, he adds.

The French defence ministry says its primary mission via operations in Gabon is to train soldiers in the region and boost their capabilities to combat terror, protect land borders and maritime territory. This involves peacekeeping, intelligence and logistics.

It says these roles are in line with the Reinforcement of African Peacekeeping Capacities (Recamp) programme, a training initiative set up in the late 1990s involving France, the UK and US.

In Senegal, it works to oversee training across all 15 members of the West African regional bloc, Ecowas, plus neighbouring Mauritania.

Which nations still have French bases?

Although their numbers have been cut in recent years, several thousand French troops are still deployed in the following countries: [....]

Fighting #M23_Wazalendo : the war plunges a large part of North Kivu into a new life! Men who have always fed the country are currently living in tents, others are in mosquito nets, during this period of rain children are dying of hunger or from illnesses linked to poor living conditions.
This Friday, November 17, I visited several displaced people's sites in the territory of Masisi, from Sake, to Masisi center via Bihambwe, these displaced people are going through unspeakable misery.

Above is the English translation of the below (via google), with his photos